How to Be an American Housewife

by Margaret Dilloway

  “And you going tell people ’bout board and how make look pretty?” I wanted him to tell me that next year he would do a better job. Next year, maybe someone like Sue would be saved this trouble.

  His face rumpled as he tried to decipher what I had said. “But it’s already done. Don’t worry about it.” He patted my hand. “You know, science isn’t for everyone. Sue’s a nice girl. Too quiet. I barely notice her.” He gave me a little salute and turned and walked away.

  I stood and waved to Sue. She walked over, her short heels making a dull clicking noise on the tile. “What?”

  “These people know nothing.” I shook my head. “No help kid out.”

  “Mom. Lower your voice.” Sue shrank herself down again.

  “I tell you what, science fair not fair.” I watched the parents, undoubtedly congratulating their Ph.D. minds on completing an eighth-grader’s work. The cardiologist dad slung an arm casually around his son. I thought about putting my arm around Sue to comfort her, in the American way, but while I was thinking about it the moment passed and Sue moved out of reach. “No good school,” I said instead.

  “Just forget about it, Mom.”

  I looked up at her. She was so beautiful, so tall. Only a few friends ever came around. Her teachers hardly noticed her. How could she be so invisible to everyone? “You got speak up, Suiko, get what you want.”

  She sighed heavily, opened and closed her mouth. I wondered what she had been about to say.

  I watched the parents for a minute, trying to figure out who had money and who didn’t, who was nice and who wasn’t, and was unable to. I looked at my own clothes and felt like a pretender.

  The bell rang. Sue moved around her tadpole jars. The parents began filing out. I stayed put, watching my daughter move aimlessly, her head down.

  “Sue, I tell you. Not right, how they do this. I talk principal.” I put my hand on her shoulder.

  She shrugged away. “Forget it, okay?” She turned and strode off. “I’ll see you after school.” I waited until she left, then went home myself.

  “ MOM , WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” Sue’s voice startled me over the clicking keyboards and phone beeps in her office. Maybe I had been daydreaming too long.

  I breathed in and out. What would Sue believe? The Marine base with the Commissary was a few miles away from her work. As retirees, we got to use it as much as we liked. I had never been there without Charlie. I looked Sue in the eyes, a lighter, more golden brown than mine. “Oh, you know, I go Commissary. Thought I say hi.” I waved. “Hi.”

  “Where’s Dad?”

  I made a show of rolling my eyes. “Daddy never let me get good food. Always penny-pinching. I go alone, get what I want. Dad help Mike move.”

  Sue twirled her pen in her fingers. I could read her. My mother has lost her mind. “I’m surprised to see you, that’s all.”

  “You no want me here, I go.” I knew she would not tell me to leave. “Want to see where daughter work.”

  She glanced at her clock, calculating how many more minutes she had to spend with me before she could politely say good-bye. It was something she had started doing early on, around age nine. I couldn’t say I blamed her. I had done the same with her sometimes when she was younger, wanting only to rest when she was ready to play.

  “Mom. I can take lunch now. You want me to come with you?”

  “If you like.” I took care to make it sound like her suggestion. “Maybe get food for you, too. I take home and put fridge.”

  “Mom, I’m fine. I don’t need you to buy groceries.” She was offended.

  She was a single parent. Of course we would help her whenever we could. We didn’t have much, but we had more than enough for food. “I like to. My treat.” I inhaled again. I must talk to her about Japan. “Maybe good mommy-daughter time, huh?”

  She gave me a strange look. True, I had never used such a term. And, true, I had never tried to do things with her, the way some other modern American mothers did. I never took her out to lunch. We never chatted on the phone. I felt my heart do a fast thump-thump, unexpected.

  I needed to tell Sue the other bit of news before I told her about Japan. Aunt Suki, my sister. I studied the desk. “Aunt Suki die.”

  “Today?”

  “Couple month ago. Her husband just now write.” I shrugged, not wanting Sue to see how hurt I was. “Always forget ’bout little Shoko in America, yeah?”

  “Was it her heart?”

  I nodded. “Poor little Suki. Always she was happy one.”

  “That’s terrible.” Sue put her hand on mine.

  She did not know how terrible. Sue did not know the bond of a sibling. Not with Mike. For this I would always be sorry. Nonetheless, I did not want to upset her with my sadness. “Tokidoki, huh? We know coming for long, long time.” I smiled at my daughter. “Now you take me Commissary or what?”

  MIRAMAR WAS RIGHT DOWN the road from where Sue worked, past car dealerships and furniture wholesalers. I looked at the disabled jets on show from the street. “I live here so long and never go single air show or museum.”

  “I didn’t know you were interested in jets.” Sue drove my car carefully, unused to the controls.

  “Nobody ask me, do they?” The gate guard saw my decal and waved us through. Exhaustion tried to take over, but I resisted.

  All the way there, past Marines playing softball and washing their cars on lunch breaks, I tried to find the right words to tell her about my worsening illness and Japan and found words for everything else instead. My heart beat unsteadily. Deep breaths. Sue chattered about this and that, sneaking glances at me.

  Perhaps I should simply say it. I am probably going to die in the next few weeks.Will you go to Japan for me? She would crash the car.

  We parked in a handicapped space, me hanging up my blue placard. “People give me dirty look all time,” I said as we got out. “Think I not in wheelchair, nothing wrong me. Look nothing wrong with you, either.” I looked at Sue’s arms, her biceps so well toned. Like that Madonna singer. Elegant women never used to have muscles like that. “Your arm big like man.” I squeezed.

  “That’s what happens when you don’t have a man around the house.” She laughed shortly. “Maybe that’s why I’m single.”

  I had not meant to insult her. My head spun a little and I took hold of a cart, leaning hard on it.

  It seemed I could barely open my mouth without Sue taking it the wrong way. For Sue’s senior prom, her father had bought her a treat: a big makeover. Hair, manicure, makeup. The works. I was a little jealous. It had been at least thirty years since I’d had anything like that done. Me, who used to visit the hairdresser weekly, had been fending with home perm and color kits since Charlie left the Navy, saving money for the family.

  “I do your hair. Save hundred dollars.”

  “No way, Mom. The last time you permed it, it looked like I stuck my finger in a light socket.”

  Her expensive hairdresser did her hair in a style unsuited to her round face, which was shaped just like mine. I took one look at it and blurted out, “Make your face fat.” Maybe I should have told her before she put on her ice-green Cinderella dress and was all ready to go, but I thought she still had time to fix it. I wanted her to look nice. Of course, I didn’t think she was ugly—that would be like calling myself ugly. Mothers were the only ones you could depend on to tell the whole, unvarnished truth.

  Sue’s eyes had filled with tears. I hoped her mascara wouldn’t run. For a second I thought she would curse at me. Instead she sniffled, her tears drying up even as her face reddened under the makeup. “Thank you for your kind advice.” She left the house without another word as her date, Craig, came up the front walk.

  “You’re too harsh, Shoko,” Charlie had said. It was as close to criticism of me as he would get.

  “What matter? Nobody listen.” If my own mother had told me this, I would have taken her advice in the spirit in which it was meant.

  I THOUGHT once Sue w
as grown, I’d stop being scared for her. But I couldn’t stop. She still wasn’t happy, fretting over unseen worries. I wondered what secrets she carried that she kept from her mother. I doubted she thought about what secrets I had.

  The Commissary cart had a squeaky wheel. I had to push down harder on one side to make it stop. “You come dinner tomorrow?”

  “Sure. Why don’t we get a frozen lasagna so you don’t have to cook?” Sue walked beside me, slowly.

  “No good, frozen food.”

  “Mom, it’s really great these days. That chicken we had last time at my place was precooked.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Little bit dry. Didn’t want say.”

  AT THE COMMISSARY, I came up with a list out of nothing. We needed food; what did it matter if I bought it now with Sue instead of with Charlie? I again searched for the right moment. My heart thumped slowly.

  I watched her pick out vegetables and fruits, looking each over for bruises, smelling them the way I’d taught her. A little girl and her mother passed, carbon copies of each other. Sue had never looked like she belonged to me or to Charlie. Her hair was brown; her skin was pale and would tan.

  The little girl gave me a chubby-cheeked smile, and I smiled back. I could hardly believe my own baby was here before me, thirty-two and a mother of practically a teenager.

  Sue had been too young to be a mother. I knew because I had been, too. At twenty, you’re still a child. She had told me of her pregnancy one October day. Over the phone, though she lived only a few miles away.

  It had been better for her not to see my face. Even my voice, I couldn’t control. I shut and opened my eyes for several moments. All of the hopes and dreams she had had since she was a little girl flashed before my eyes. At five, an artist. At seven, the president. At ten, a chef. Twelve, an archaeologist. But, really, I wanted her to graduate from college, marry well, have a job she loved. Children would come later. Now she would have to make do with survival.

  “Are you there, Mom?” Sue had asked anxiously. “I’m still going to finish school.”

  “Maybe.” My voice had an edge. I tried to soften it. “Hard work, Sue. You think ’bout this?”

  “It’s too late to think about it now, even if I hadn’t.” Sue sounded disappointed.

  Charlie had been thrilled. “People have been having kids young forever,” he said. “All they need is one room and a crib.”

  I had looked at him—this man who had not been the one to wash poopy diapers and hang them to dry, who did not get up with sick children while his spouse was at sea—and said nothing.

  AT THE MEAT SECTION, I still could not think of the right way to talk to Sue. My whole life, my right moments had been few. Charlie had not asked me to marry him; I had asked him. That was one right moment. And when Sue had called me to say she and Craig were getting divorced, I had a right moment.

  She had been crying so hard I could barely understand her. “It’s over! It’s over. You were right.”

  I wanted to cry with her. Sometimes these things happen for the best, I wanted to say. I could not say I was sorry she had gotten married, for they had had my granddaughter. I could not say I was glad he was gone, for Sue was weeping. I wanted to say that she was still very young and that she would find someone else, but this might not come true. “Tokidoki,” I said instead. Fate steps in sometimes.

  But most of the time, I talked first, thought later.

  We stared at soy sauce bottles in the Japanese aisle. “I wonder real Japan food look like nowaday.” I leaned against the cart. Wouldn’t you like to see for yourself, Sue?

  It was so hard to talk to her. She moved fast, in a hurry, a humming-bird pausing at flowers.

  “They don’t carry this stuff anywhere.” She threw in packets of Japanese candies, chocolate pretzels, dried fish. Sue had always loved Japanese food.

  “Hey, Sue,” I said casually, though my mouth was dry. “You like go Japan one day?”

  “Sure, Mom. Someday.”

  “Soon.”

  My eyesight became black at the edges. My breath quickened, quickened too much, into hyperventilation, then fear. I was going to pass out. I noticed I was sitting on the floor. I forced myself to take deep breaths in and out.

  “Mom? Oh my God. I’ll call you an ambulance.”

  Sue had called one for me before, once. When she was ten and home alone. She was so brave then. She told the paramedics all my medications and history.

  My breathing slowed, my heart steadied. “No. I okay. Ambulance too takai.”

  “It’s not too expensive, Mom.”

  My eyesight sharpened. A small crowd had gathered around. Sue leaned over me, her forehead creased in worry. I touched it lightly. “No do that. Get wrinkles.”

  “Mom.” Sue grinned, relieved. “Let me at least drive you home.”

  “Then how get back work?” I shook my head, embarrassed now, embarrassed at all the people waiting for a big show. “Get me wheelchair cart. I finish shop.”

  Spaghetti sauce is the easiest American recipe to make, as long as you remember all the steps and do it far in advance. Letting it sit overnight in the refrigerator is best for developing its flavors. Add sugar if the sauce is too acidic.

  Your husband will be amazed when he comes home to a big pot of spaghetti sauce. It is also a crowd-pleaser. Even little babies and Japanese people like spaghetti sauce.

  —from the chapter “Cooking Western-Style,”

  How to Be an American Housewife

  Eleven

  Back at home, I rested on the couch while Charlie brought the groceries in. He and Mike had come to get me after Sue called. “No way you’re driving home,” she had said.

  Charlie had been mad. “You’re impossible, Shoko-chan, you know that?” he had shouted. “You’re going to get yourself killed!”

  I had to agree. How could I go to Japan if I couldn’t even make a trip to the Commissary?

  But Charlie’s anger passed, a brief rainstorm. The nice thing about Charlie was he never held a grudge in his life, even when he should have. Once a drunk driver hit our car and cried so hard that Charlie took pity and didn’t report him. “Everyone needs a second chance,” he said.

  I wasn’t like that. I believed that if someone wronged you once, they would do it again. They shouldn’t be given the chance to try. Taro was just like me.

  WHEN IT CAME TIME for Sue to arrive for dinner, I waited for her in the yard, watering the brown-tinged ice plant. I feared I had neglected it too long this time.

  I hoped Sue would like the spaghetti. It was once her favorite. But perhaps her favorite had changed and I had not asked what her new favorite was.

  For Sue’s birthday, every year, I would cook whatever her favorite food was.

  No matter what it was, she would get it. Most children wanted pizza every year. Not Sue. Once she asked for a ham with pineapple slices stuck on it with cloves. Once for sushi rolls. And often for spaghetti and meatballs.

  I always made her the kind of cake she wanted, too, devil’s food with chocolate frosting, though privately I thought chocolate with chocolate was too much chocolate.

  “Why is it devil’s food? Is it evil?” she had asked when she was five. We were having a party for her kindergarten classmates. She had invited the entire class and it looked like they were all coming. I had Charlie borrow kid-sized chairs from his church, and we put a linen tablecloth over our coffee table for the kids to sit at. She wore a pink party dress and had her hair in a ponytail that was sliding out.

  “Probably because make you want to be a big devil and eat whole thing, ’cause Mommy’s cake oishı̄.” Delicious. I laughed and so did she. I fixed her ponytail again. Back then, her hair was red and slightly curly. It had darkened and straightened over time. “Your hair too slick, Suiko-chan. Never gonna stay.”

  “I’ll take it out.” She pulled the elastic free. “It’s pulling my hair, anyway.”

  All the little kindergartners sat around the table, just lik
e a Norman Rockwell painting, wearing party hats and laughing. Even Sue, usually so shy and quiet, whooped and hollered. “It’s just what I wanted!” she screamed after she opened each gift.

  “Sit down, I’ll serve the cake,” Charlie whispered to me. I did, and watched later as he led them through Pin the Tail on the Donkey and then outside for leapfrog, Sue’s face smiling in the sun.

  Looking back, I wondered why we didn’t do this every year. But later it seemed like her birthday came and went and the most I could do was make her a dinner, not a whole party. We were either too broke or I was too overwhelmed with my health, or both. Sue had other parties later, small ones when she could entertain her friends on her own. I forgot to miss that joyful little girl until she was already grown up and gone.

  Sue and Helena pulled up, blocking the driveway. “Obāchan!” Helena called out, giving me a big hug. “Smells great.”

  “You taller than me, Helena-chan.”

  “I have been for three years.” She smiled and went inside.

  Sue stood around, looking at the dead plants, the old windows, the crack in the chimney. I turned off the hose. “Gonna stand around all night?” I made my lips smile, but she looked in my eyes and saw what I meant. Quit looking around. Don’t tell us about the house. We already know. They say that Asians are stone-faced, but it’s all in the eyes. “Gotta finish dinner.”

  We went inside. Sue opened the silverware drawer. “Wash hand first. Lotta good college did.”

  Sue merely smiled. In one ear and out the other.

  I remembered when I taught her how to wash the dishes. She had been six or seven. When I had been her age, I had done the laundry alone. “Use hot water, so hot make hands red,” I had said to her, pouring a good amount of Palmolive into the sink.

  She had stood on a stool and dipped her hands into it. She looked at me with her wide eyes. “It’s too hot to touch.”